There is currently no scale that the Department of Health in England accepts as a valid measure of positive mental health and wellbeing. Yet independent surveys repeatedly show that, despite (pre-recession) increasing economic wealth in our society, people's sense of happiness and satisfaction with the quality of their lives has not gone up.

Last month the New Economics Foundation (nef) published a survey of wellbeing across Europe, using data from the European Social Survey. The UK ranks 13th out of 22 on the combined measures of social and personal wellbeing. Denmark, Switzerland and Norway - countries that have traditionally invested more in their social infrastructure - have the highest levels of overall wellbeing, while Ukraine, Bulgaria and Hungary have the lowest. Levels of trust and belonging are "strikingly" low among young people in the UK, the report says.

Its findings are endorsed by the Children's Society's three-year Good Childhood inquiry, released earlier this month, which says "the belief among adults that the prime duty of the individual is to make the most of their own life, rather than contribute to the good of others" is partly to blame for rising levels of unhappiness and mental disorders among children and young people today. One in ten children between five and 16 has clinically significant mental health difficulties.